Crochet Queen: Royal Ramblings

I am participating with 9 other bloggers in the Blog Tour to promote Alla Koval's 2 new books: Imagical Seasons Volumes 1 and 2. See my review here on the blog at 8:00 AM (CST) on July 15, 2015. To join in the blog tour and see other reviews, interviews and give-aways, see the schedule below. Alla Koval with Pixie CrochetQueen: Your kids fashions are charming and unique. What inspires you? Alla: Thank you so much, Gwen! Sometimes, the idea for a design just comes into my head and I don't know from where. I just visualize it clearly and then somehow turn the mental images into something real. Other times, I find inspiration in paintings and photographs—Pinterest is an amazing source of inspiration and eye-candy. I look at things and try to understand if I can see something special that has to be noticed.  Many times I start by looking for unusual stitch patterns, and start building my ideas from them. It’s so interesting to see how a stitch pattern evolves w

Monday, August 19, 2013 Blueprint Crochet Sweaters Techniques for Custom Construction by Robyn Chachula Wunderkind designer, Robyn Chachula, works as an architect, has babies and designs architecturally-inspired best-selling fashions! Her newest offering in the “Blueprint” brand is Blueprint Crochet Sweaters just published by Interweave.  Because of her background as a structural engineer, Robyn has the ability to take big projects and break them in little chunks that anyone can understand. Her book will become the go-to guide for anyone who has ever been frustrated by less than pleasing results when crocheting garments. It is also a fantastic reference for wannabe fashion crochet designers, as well as a for seasoned professionals. A one-of-a-kind, Blueprint Crochet Sweaters provides an approachable introduction to the topic giving readers a deeper understanding of crochet design, and helping them to make better-fitting garments in the process. Robyn’s purpose i

Thursday, December 6, 2012 I usually blog on Mondays; where has this week gone? Have you ever been privileged to have a professional photographer us a blanket you have crocheted in a photo? It hit me like a bolt of lightening recently, when my daughter shared pics from a photo shoot she did for her Christmas card. There it was...the blanket I crocheted for her wedding gift. It was draped gracefully around her now precious family of four, some 7 years after I had gifted it. Low beautiful to see the filet hearts draping them in love. (I'm hoping we'll get a set of these gorgeous photos as a gift and then I'll post it here). Meanwhile, it got me to thinking of some other photos I have in which the photographer used blankies I had made. What fun and a lasting legacy of my crochet to which is quite an honor. The crochet is so beautiful as background as well. Try scanning crochet sometime. It makes for beautiful eye-candy and is great for your Facebook Timeline! Jack, ou

Tuesday, October 16, 2012 It is really amazing and gratifying to stop a moment and to contemplate how far we have come in the crochet world. To think that back in 1994, when the Crochet Guild was beginning to hatch, we were begging for good patterns, rarely saw a new book, didn't have a conference, didn't have guild chapters...We've come along way baby! During this last week, I've been gasping for breath, running around, busying my mind all due to crochet activity. There is so much to celebrate and October 12 was I Love Yarn Day sponsored by the Craft Yarn Council (CYC) . I had the idea of yarn-bombing as a way of showing my love of yarn. I threw out the idea and 3 other chapter members stepped up to join my effort. I had spied a "delicious" set of 3 bronze statues depicting children holding hands and skipping. "How perfect and easy," I thought, "to string chains of squares from hand to hand to lend color to this wonderful sculpture. Concett